


life in stop motion

by heartbreakordeath



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Charlie, Immortality, M/M, immortal!dan and ralph
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26262100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartbreakordeath/pseuds/heartbreakordeath
Summary: “So...what do you want to be, this time?”“A singer,” Dan (that’s his name now, he decides) says after a moment. “I’d like to be a singer.”
Relationships: Charlie Barnes/Dan Smith
Comments: 11
Kudos: 17





	life in stop motion

**Author's Note:**

> many many many MANY thank yous to my frens for their help beta reading this fic <33 ily guys thank u for being excited over this realllllyyyy random fucking idea
> 
> very special thank u to [williever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/willIever) who actually added a few bits here and there, so if something seems too wonderfully poetic to have been written by me then it was probably her !
> 
> (if you're reading this you _probably_ know but title is from Film by charlie barnes)

“When I asked, I didn’t think you meant  _ this _ .” Ralph (he’d had a harder time settling on a name this time) kicks at the concrete wall with disdain. “Uni, again, really?”

“Listen, I have a plan.” Dan drops the oversized trunk he was holding onto his bed, which squeaks in protest. 

“You always have a ‘plan.’ Doesn’t mean it’s a good one. When do  _ I  _ get to make the plan?”

“You’ve made plenty!” Dan looks from the trunk to the pile of rumpled sheets on the mattress, realizing his mistake. “Remember Australia?”

“Will a single day ever go by where you let me forget about Australia?”

“Nope. Help me with this stupid thing and maybe I will. Fucking uni…”

~

“See? It’s already coming together.” Ralph blinks rapidly at the flyer his friend is waving in front of his face. “Open mic night. This Friday!”

“We don’t have any gear, Dan.” He raises his eyebrows and takes another sip of coffee. “Don’t tell me you thought of that in your ‘plan’ too.”

Ralph doesn't like the look Dan gives him at that. 

“Of course I did, my dear friend. Don’t you trust me?”

“Not for a second, and never for an eternity,” Ralph mutters into his mug.

~

Truth be told, a university is one of the best places to be if your goal is to blend in. Ralph (reluctantly) shaves his beard again, Dan puts slightly less product in his hair, and suddenly they’re indistinguishable from the thousands of young students constantly rushing around the buildings decades older than them.

Sure, it’s suspicious that two young men apply suddenly with enough money to support themselves for four years, but stranger things have happened. It’s  _ uni _ , after all.

It’s 2009, now- not that that means anything to the two of them. Dan can’t wait to get his hands on an iPhone, regardless of the amount of times Ralph rolls his eyes at him for it; and Ralph decides he wants a more... _ unique _ name than something as common as ‘Smith.’ 

“How the fuck do you expect to fit in with a name like Ralph  _ Pelleymounter _ ?”

“The same way you expect to fit in with that monstrous hair of yours,  _ Daniel Smith _ .” 

~

“You survived Pompeii, I think you can handle a few entry-level uni classes.”

“I was nowhere  _ near  _ Mount Vesuvius, and I sure as hell wasn’t being  _ marked  _ on my ability to survive at the time, thank you very much.”

“Have you always been this dramatic?”

A huff. “Probably, yeah. Get with the times, man.”

~

“Oh, another thing,” Ralph continues, as if they’re not weeks out from their first conversation on the topic. “You have stage fright.”

Dan swallows hard, looking out at the ten or so people in the room for Open Mic Night. They’re all staring back at him expectantly.

“Yeah,” he chokes out under his breath, turning an alarming shade of pale, even for him. “I do, don’t I?”

~

2010 doesn’t come as quickly as it normally would. The days slip by unnoticed- the leaves fall, the sun drops faster behind the trees, the food quality in the dining halls diminishes significantly once all the new students have settled in and the parents have left- and then a bright-eyed young guitarist stumbles into the scene, and time starts moving a bit slower.

“Here we go again,” Ralph sighs, but secretly he’s filled with relief. Sure, it’s the most painful thing in the universe. Sure, it can take years-  _ lifetimes _ \- to move on. Maybe Dan’s right, and Ralph is simply overly sentimental about these things; but Ralph has quite a lot of thoughts on love.

This one’s name is Charlie, and Ralph’s pretty sure Dan would follow him anywhere.

~

“How do you have so many stories?” Charlie says between tipsy giggles, tearing his eyes away from Dan to look up at the night sky. “I’m starting to think you’re making shit up to impress me.”

Dan stills. “Why would I do that?” 

“...make shit up?” Charlie repeats slowly, questioningly, “or want to impress me?”

“I…” Dan turns, meeting his friend’s eyes. They’re open, inviting, blissfully oblivious. He thinks he’d like them to stay that way.

“They’re all true,” he says finally, after he’s certain they’re past the amount of eye contact appropriate between two friends sitting alone in the dark. Ironically, the stories that spill out of him on nights like these might be the only honest thing about him.

~

“Is it cliche to say they’ve got it all wrong?” Dan’s hair brushes the floor, and he sighs as the heavy history textbook falls to the carpet next to it. He squints at an upside-down Ralph, currently strumming his guitar aimlessly at their shared desk (there were  _ supposed  _ to be two- it’s still a mystery what happened to the second) and humming an unfamiliar melody.

“Hmm?”

Dan points at the worn-out cover. “That. They know absolutely nothing.”

“What? A textbook written in the mid-1900s by a bunch of old heterosexual white men?” Ralph raises his eyebrows and claps a hand to his chest. “The thought!”

“I  _ will _ throw this at you.”

“You won’t, though.”

“Feel like testing that theory, old heterosexual white man?”

~

He wants to tell Charlie. Ralph doesn’t.

~

“What color are your eyes?” Charlie asks one night, on the way back from another Open Mic Night. Though he’ll never admit it, the guitarist has gathered a smattering of fans that keep drawing both of them back to play a few more songs. 

“What?” Dan huffs a laugh, frowning when he can see it float out into the darkness. It’s that time of the year again- time to start taking the bus instead of walking around campus, for one thing. He tucks his hands deeper into the pockets of his coat and wonders how Charlie’s getting by with that one sweatshirt of his.

“They’re always just-” his friend flaps a sleeve at him, his hand hidden somewhere inside. “I thought they were blue, but sometimes they don’t look it.”

_ Why do you know that?  _ Dan wants to say.  _ Why does it matter to you so much?  _

“They look like they’ve seen a lot,” Charlie says suddenly, and then looks surprised at his own words. Every question on Dan’s tongue dries up immediately.

“You can see so much in such a short space of time,” Dan says, and Charlie cocks his head. “All it takes is one little-” He makes an explosion with his fingers. 

Charlie frees his hand from his sleeve, touches his own fingers to Dan’s- just for a second. Dan doesn’t say that you can also feel an entire lifetime’s worth of emotion in one second, too. But he thinks it then. 

~

“Maybe you should start a  _ band _ ,” Ralph suggests one day. Dan shudders. 

“ _ No _ .”

~

Ralph decides eventually that he’ll simply start his  _ own  _ band. Dan wants to be a singer- why can’t he be one, too?

“It’s a little...on the nose, don’t you think?” Dan holds the flyer in his hand, a bemused expression on his face.

“What’s the point of-” even Ralph’s voice still drops at the mention of it- “of being  _ immortal _ if you don’t get to have some fun with it?”

Dan has to admit it’s not the  _ worst _ band name he’s ever heard.

“It’s settled, then.” Ralph beams that wide smile of his, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and snatches the flyer back.

~

Charlie laughs a bit when he sees it.

“ _ To Kill a King _ ? Where’d that come from?”

Dan opens his mouth to respond, catching his friend’s eyes and trying not to laugh at the glare he receives.

“Uh- inside joke, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh.” Charlie rolls his eyes and thrusts the flyer back into Ralph’s hands roughly. “You two have quite a lot of those, don’t you?”

“Charlie-” Dan tries, but his friend’s cutting him off before he can say anything, muttering something about  _ a lot of homework to do and rehearsal to practice for _ \- and then he’s gone and Dan deflates. 

~

Sometimes Dan thinks the universe will catch up with him. He has nightmares- in them his skin turns papery and thin, his hair turns to dust, and then there’s nothing but bone, his brain being the last to die. 

He’s been buried before, because mistakes happen. The last time he just laid there and closed his eyes, hoping that he could trick himself into- 

The last time was a bad one. He supposes you don’t get to live forever  _ and  _ have everything be perfect. 

~

“You have to be more careful.”

Dan looks back at himself in the mirror, into the dark eyes that reflect back the all-knowing, unblinking void inside him. Until he blinks again, and they’re the blue that he remembers. Or at least, he  _ thinks _ he remembers.

“He needs to see you as  _ Dan Smith _ . Not…”

“I know.” Dan doesn’t mean to snap, but he’s sick of it. Sick of Ralph trying to parent him this time around, as if his closest friend hasn’t fucked up enough times for the both of them.

_ Ralph’s  _ always the one who makes them stick around somewhere, “just for a few more years.” Ralph’s the one who always falls head-over-heels for some new face, the one Dan has to console every time another of them slips away out of his grasp.

“It’s like...it’s like we’re on a river,” the bearded man had once tried to rationalize on a drunken (and probably stoned) night in Kenya. “And they’re all- they’re all swimming, and floating, and- and  _ drowning _ , and we’re the only ones with a boat.”

It’s not exactly how Dan thinks of it, but he appreciates the metaphor nonetheless. It  _ is  _ what it feels like, some days.

Other days, though, it feels like a film. There’s a beginning, an end, all the love and tragedy and laughter and heartache in between. And then there’s Dan, and Ralph, and the ones who used to be like them but have slowly faded into obscurity. They’re the ones simply watching all the frames tick by, barely aware of the days or years or decades that they hold.

~

“I’ve not played this one before,” Dan says into the mic, quietly. The small crowd, as expected, expresses its excitement as he sits down at the piano, leg already bouncing anxiously. He’s sure this is a horrible idea.

“It’s sorta depressing,” he adds once he’s settled, voice cracking on the word. “But...I like it, so…”

He clears his throat, ignoring the laugh he hears from Charlie, somewhere by the stage. This one’s not about him- not yet. Those songs are still buried in a computer program he’s still struggling to learn (though he loves it, he sends a healthy amount of mental  _ fuck you _ s to whoever invented technology that updates faster than he can learn it) but he’s sure they’ll see the light of day before Charlie- well.

[ This one ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EFAif620Wc) , though, he wrote years ago about Ralph. Ralph and his warm, boisterous laugh; his crow’s feet that have existed for centuries on an otherwise ageless face; his poetic stories and songs that could draw in even the most skeptical of listeners.

Ralph, his best friend. The closest thing to a platonic soulmate Dan could possibly have. Why  _ not  _ write one, or a million songs about it?

Charlie, bless his little mortal heart, could never begin to understand. Still, what is it about him that makes Dan’s heart ache terribly as he sings the words, glancing over at his friend as if the other man could just  _ get it _ ?

What is it about that  _ one person _ , Dan and Ralph have always pondered. Why is it that one could go years and years without them, and then one day wonder how they ever survived before the day they met them?

~

For Dan, the epiphany comes at the turn of the decade, when Charlie travels back to Lichfield for the winter holiday and strands Dan on campus with no open mics or friends to spend his time with.

It’s what Ralph calls “Lost Puppy Season,” and it’s about as uneventful as expected. They discover a treasure trove of puzzles and old films in the library, and before they know it, Christmas and New Year’s have come and gone (both spent by the two men in one of the bars in the quiet town nearby) and students are filtering back into campus like they’d never left.

It seems that the time apart hasn’t been lost on Charlie, who corners Dan as soon as he’s tossed his bags back in his room, and says something all in a rush that Dan eventually figures out is the anxious young man’s way of asking him out for a coffee. 

~

He’s too nervous to tell Ralph, so he waits until Ralph figures it out himself. Which, of course, takes all of five seconds when the bearded man (he’s growing it back again, so his face ‘doesn’t feel so naked all the time’) meets up with the two of them for dinner and takes one look at Dan’s face. 

Sometimes Dan curses the fact his companion has always known him better than anyone else.

~

It’s another sleepless night for Charlie and Dan both, though try as Charlie might, he’ll never be able to figure out what  _ exactly  _ causes Dan’s dark under eye circles the next morning. 

Dan can’t help the way his gut swirls with discomfort when Charlie sheepishly admits that he’d been awake thinking about the two of them. On the outside, he smiles back and says, “Me too,” hoping that’ll be the end of it.

Maybe the shorter man isn’t as oblivious as he appears, though. The look he gives in return catches Dan off guard- for a split second, he feels like the truth, the whole truth, could spill right out of him if he doesn’t keep the lid on it tight enough. 

~

Ralph’s found someone too, now, a breathtaking woman in her third year of uni who for some reason has decided to spend her time with a first-year (to the horror of all of her friends and a particularly pesky ex-boyfriend). Emmy spots him first, performing at an Open Mic Night with a few friends who may (though they don’t know it yet) soon make the upgrade from  _ friend _ to  _ bandmate _ .

It’s not long before the four of them are inseparable, sharing alcohol and shitty takeout on their free nights and spending the rest of their time complaining about their classes. Emmy’s in school to be a teacher, and Ralph eagerly spends most of his afternoons studying with her in the library and simultaneously pretending he knows nothing about the subject. 

(He still gets letters sometimes from the students he used to teach in Switzerland in the 90s. To the bafflement of his coworkers, the amount of students choosing to take history courses skyrocketed the year he started there. English courses, too, after another strangely young-looking applicant joined the staff and proceeded to spend more time waffling about books and films than actually assigning work. Most of the student body loved them, though unbeknownst to the teachers they also assumed the two were a couple for the entire year.)

Ralph nearly slips up even faster than Dan, as usual. Emmy seems too smart to hide secrets from, too curious to stop asking questions when the man’s behavior seems just a  _ little  _ bit off. She laughs when he tries to correct the textbook they’re studying from, shutting him up with a kiss and closing the book until later.

But they’re happy, for now- and really, what more do you need?

~

Hidden in an old worn notebook in Dan’s backpack is a list. A list of seemingly random dates, that to anyone else would have no relation whatsoever. Ralph knows about it- he has one too, of course- but he pretends to ignore it whenever Dan brings it out and adds something with a frown or a soft smile on his face.

_ 2010- spring _ is the newest addition. 

~

The next addition comes a few weeks later, on a quiet night after Charlie and Dan have forgone any remaining awkwardness in favor of squeezing into Dan’s twin bed to watch a movie. Ralph’s on an emergency snack and coffee run, most likely spending the night at Emmy’s as she crams two weeks’ worth of material into one caffeine-fueled study session before her exam in the morning.

It seems natural for Dan’s hand to find its way into Charlie’s hair, for Charlie’s arm to end up curled around Dan’s torso, for their legs to tangle beneath the sheets and the overheating laptop that rests on them precariously.

It’s nice. Really, really fucking nice.

And then Dan has to go and ruin it, of course, when the credits roll and he turns to find himself eye to eye with the man next to him, and he just looks so  _ soft _ and  _ nice  _ and  _ warm _ and he can’t help himself.

If Charlie’s shocked at the turn in events, he doesn’t show it. He sighs into the kiss, sinking against Dan and curling further into his side, and Dan can think of nowhere else he’d rather be.

It’s a little while later, when things start heading in another direction and his hands travel lower, and Charlie stiffens and says in one breath, “Idon’treally-“ and Dan pauses, waits for the expected - _ do this often, you know _ that never comes. 

_ Oh. _

“Is that- is that alright?” the man squirms under the intensity of Dan’s stare. “I know it’s weird, maybe, I just-“

But Dan’s quick to duck his head into the dip above Charlie’s shoulder, to drape a warm hand over his chest instead and whisper in his ear, “Of course it’s alright. Why wouldn’t it be alright? It’s you.”

And Charlie- he sinks into the bed again, looks at Dan like he means the  _ world _ to him, gives him a soft smile and says simply, “Damn it, I love you,” and Dan wonders why he ever stopped letting himself have this. 

~

He remembers why soon enough.

He still wants to tell Charlie the truth. Ralph looks like he’s growing tired of being asked.

~

They’re sophomores, now, and Dan can feel the truth boiling up from within him again. The only thing he doesn’t expect from the fresh semester is for Charlie to simply...beat him to it.

“Are you a vampire or something?” It’s blunt, to the point, and Dan pauses between bites of his toast for a moment to consider whether or not his tone is, in fact, serious. He decides to go with the standard reaction, raising his eyebrows in disbelief and laughing lightly.

“What?”

His boyfriend- they’ve gotten there, finally- leans back, crosses his arms and rests them on the table. His cereal and coffee sit between them, forgotten. He shrugs.

  
“Well?”

Dan casts his eyes around the nearly-empty dining hall.

“You’re not  _ serious _ .”

“What if I am?”   
  
Dan blinks, takes a sip of coffee. “Charlie, I’m not a fucking vampire.” He sees Charlie open his mouth and sit forward again, and adds tiredly, “Yes, I know, that’s exactly what a vampire would say.”

“I wasn’t going to say that!” There’s a pause. “Okay,  _ fine _ . Sorry.” 

“It’s alright. Would be cool if I was a vampire, though, huh?”

“Wouldn’t that make you dead? And hundreds of years older than me?”   
  


_ Not even close _ .

He laughs and goes back to his breakfast. The next sip of coffee burns as it goes down his throat. “Yeah, you’re right. Guess it would.”

~

“I can’t do this anymore, you know.”

Dan feels his entire body go cold. “What? What do you mean?”

“This...this  _ silence _ .” Charlie waves his hands around at the space between them. “What are you not telling me?”

“I...don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really.” Charlie’s avoiding Dan’s gaze, trying to ignore the wounded look on his face. “Wanna tell me why you and Ralph know everything about- about  _ everything _ ? Why you tell me about all these things you’ve done and places you’ve been and friends you’ve had, and I don’t even know your mom’s name?” Dan winces. “Why you act so  _ weird  _ all the time, around  _ me _ ?” His voice wavers. “It’s like you shut up whenever I show up and crash the party with you and Ralph. You’re best friends, I know, but it’s not  _ fair _ , Dan. What am I fucking missing here?”

They’re attracting too much attention here, in the middle of the brick path between the history and science buildings. Dan swallows, grabs Charlie’s hand.

“I need to show you something. But you need to promise me something, too.”

Charlie’s face softens. “Anything.”

Dan’s last bit of resolve crumbles.

“Just...promise me I won’t lose you yet.”

~

“I don’t understand.” Charlie skims over the pages, brow furrowed in concentration. “What is this?”

“It’s...hard to explain.” Dan’s hands itch to snatch the book from the other man’s hands. He balls them into fists and sticks them in the pockets of his hoodie. “I’m not really supposed to show this to anybody.”

“These- these are dates,” Charlie says slowly, running a finger down the middle of the lines. “Like here- July 14th, 2002. Spring 2010. But…some of these don’t make any sense.”

He points to an earlier page, feeling the way Dan tenses anxiously beside him. “This one says August 1962. Winter 1899. February 1st, 1707. What do any of these mean?”

Dan’s eyes are locked on the names, ones he’s surprised Charlie isn't more interested in.

“Grace was a waitress,” he says softly. “She was always so happy when I played that Marvin Gaye song in the diner for her. I wonder what happened to her.”

Charlie follows his eyes to the name, scrawled next to  _ 1968 _ . 

“I don’t…” he laughs nervously. “You’re fucking with me, right? You’re fucking with me.” Dan doesn’t say a word.

“Dan.” Charlie’s grin drops. “Are you alright?”

Dan opens his mouth, and then there’s footsteps in the hallway, getting closer, and he grabs the notebook so quickly a page tears in Charlie’s hand. He shoves it under the bed, pulling Charlie into a heated kiss before the other man can react.

Ralph opens the door a second later, quickly averting his eyes and tossing his bag on his bed. He says something about going out with Emmy to celebrate her exam scores, and  _ you two better stay the fuck away from my bed _ , and then they’re alone again.

Charlie pulls away as soon as the door slams shut, reaching over to pick his bag up from the floor next to Dan’s bed. His eyes flash with silent anger, with  _ hurt _ , and Dan struggles to form an apology before he loses the chance.

“Charlie-”

“I think I should go.”

~

Dan doesn’t want to go to Ralph’s gig. He’s not given a choice, sure, but it doesn’t mean he’ll pretend not to be miserable about it. 

“He’s going to be there.”   
  


“So what if he’s fucking there? He’s the one who hasn’t texted you in days.”   
  


_ I told him _ .  _ I ruined it all, Ralph. He’ll never talk to me again. _

“You should play a song, do a little opener for us. That one you did about me- they loved it last time. Sure it’ll take your mind off things.”

Dan hesitates. It won’t. Nothing will.

Ralph claps a hand on his shoulder as he walks by, grabbing his guitar case from its spot by the door. “If we get going now, you’ll have time to practice. Come on, then.”

~

He doesn’t play Laughter Lines this time. He plays through it idly while  _ To A Kill a King  _ set up the stage around him, but there’s something else on his mind. Someone else.

And then there’s a spotlight on him, and the bar crowd is looking at him rather expectantly, and Dan opens his mouth and places his hands on the keyboard.

The words that come out of him, for once, are new. They’re still fresh in the last page of a different notebook, one he keeps nearly as hidden as his other one.

[ This one, finally, is about Charlie. ](https://youtu.be/o7nmrjVy4Pk)

~

He shows up within the next week, catching Dan on his way out of class. 

“Can we-” he clears his throat, looking just as nervous as Dan feels. “Can we talk, somewhere?”

~   
  
“I was there,” Charlie starts, slowly. “At the show.”

“Oh. So you heard…?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”   
  


There’s a pause, and then Charlie sighs and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a faded and creased piece of paper, flattening it onto the table between them. Dan frowns. It’s the missing page from his notebook- he hadn’t even thought about what had happened to it after that night.

“Oh,” he repeats. Charlie looks up, runs a hand through his disheveled hair anxiously. It’s not until then that Dan realizes how absolutely  _ wrecked _ he looks. He’s sure his own face doesn’t look much different.

“I think,” Charlie says in a hushed voice. “I think I know what you are. Who you are, maybe.”

“Alright.” Dan clears his throat, dares to hope, to push his luck as far as he can stand. “And you’re...still here.”

“I made a promise,” Charlie replies simply, mouth quirking up slightly. “I might be an idiot, and you might be- I don’t know, absolutely insane, maybe, I haven’t decided yet- but I don’t break promises.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Dan whispers, struggling to breathe all of a sudden. Charlie nods, reaching across the table to touch his arm lightly.

“From what I figure, you will.” Dan jerks back, a shocked frown on his face.

“Not yet, though. Right now, we have all the time in the world. Right?”

Dan laughs in disbelief, shaking his head. He’s never had quite this reaction before, and it makes him want to scream, or cry, or find a name for all the indistinguishable emotions swirling around inside of him. One’s pretty obvious, though.

_ God, I love you. You crazy, crazy man. _

“I’m sure you’ve seen enough movies to know how these things go,” Dan warns, locking eyes with Charlie. “If you- if you don’t want to get involved in this, don’t. I’d understand.”

“I know.” Charlie shrugs.

“You don’t know half of the places I’ve been. What I’ve...seen, what I’ve done. Not every story is meant for telling.” 

“Oh my god, what fucking shitty movie is that from? Shut up and just  _ tell me  _ already.”

**Author's Note:**

> u should know i very very nearly ended it on this bit. be glad i didn't.
> 
> _“You’re so weird. I could just tell you about the time I was a potato farmer for three decades.”_
> 
> _“I’m sure you were a very exciting potato farmer.”_
> 
> _“I was a horrible fucking potato farmer.”_


End file.
